Mobster turned pastor preaches to former yakuza in Japan

• Like
many other young men, he was lured by the intoxicating illusion of an easy life
of crime

• With
his gangster tattoos he now preaches to other reformed ex-yakusa

Kawaguchi, Japan (CNN)It's a
rainy Sunday morning in Kawaguchi, a city of around half a million people on
the outskirts of Tokyo. Men and women toting Japan's ubiquitous clear plastic
umbrellas file into the entrance of a nondescript corner bar.

The sign above the door reads
June Bride. For 25 years, it was a popular watering hole in this quiet
residential neighborhood in Saitama Prefecture.

Tucked on a street corner, the
exterior of June Bride has changed little over the years. But inside, the place
has undergone a drastic transformation. The old bar and karaoke stage are gone,
replaced by a pulpit adorned with a large cross. Neat rows of chairs slowly
fill with damp but mostly smiling faces. They chat silently amongst themselves.

While some faces in the crowd are
longtime bar patrons, they no longer come here to drink. This is, without a
doubt, a place of worship.

One of the last people to enter
the room is the man everyone calls teacher, Sensei Tatsuya Shindo.

From the moment he walks through
the door, parishioners forget the dreary weather as electricity fills the room.
Shindo takes command of the pulpit -- raising his arms, nodding his head, and
preaching with intensity as if he is pulsating with "energy from above."

Ex-gangster

Shindo is 44 but looks much
younger, partially because of his long hair and also because he seems to have a
permanent grin. He laughs often, even when speaking about the dark past he
shares with many members of his congregation of around 100 people.

"Before, we were in rival
gangs, firing guns," he exclaims from the pulpit. "Now, we're
praising the same God."

Inside Japan's murky criminal
underworld

The pastor, like some of his
parishioners, is an ex-gangster. Most of them were teenagers when they joined
the Japanese mafia, known as the yakuza. Shindo was 17.

"I was a child. I didn't
think too deeply," he says. "And I admired the yakuza for what was
visible only on the surface. They have lots of money, spend their money
lavishly, and play glamorously. The bad guys looked so cool in my eyes."

Payment in blood

The intoxicating illusion of an
easy life of crime has lured tens of thousands of Japanese teenagers to join
the yakuza. Shindo says most of his fellow gangsters came from dysfunctional
families. The yakuza fostered a sense of loyalty and brotherhood. But as Shindo
fell deeper into the Japanese underworld, he learned the price of belonging was
often paid in blood.